Do you have a compulsion?

What is that? I don't know what that is, exactly...

That's a typical exchange from NBC's To Catch a Predator. God, these guys are DUMB.

I'm amazed that there are so many of these guys. What I want to know is, did this start off as a one-time thing where they just decided to try to catch a couple and the whole thing just snowballed from there, or did an executive realize that the sheer volume of predators meant that this was was a potential cottage industry right out of the gate?

Also, have they caught any female predators? They must be out there, right? I mean, I'm reasonably sure they are a small portion of the whole, but they've got to be out there. On the other hand, female predators probably don't need to get on the Internet.

They just get teaching jobs.

I'm watching Charlie Rose interview Steve Martin. I never really appreciated just how much time he spent working in obscurity before he broke. He's been huge for so damn long, that it's easy to forget that he didn't emerge onto the scene, fully formed.

I am so damned impressed that he has chosen to explore his standup years for his memoir. One could argue that most people no longer think of Steve Martin as a standup comedian. However, he has chosen to focus on that. Further proof that Standup Comedy is the highest aspiration a performer can have.

It's not really proof of that. I know this. Still, it's pretty cool.

I've got a new column up at Effect Magazine. Just scroll down to "Effective Perspective," or you might be able to get the pdf directly by clicking here. It's called "A Chip in the Old Block," and it's all about how we're all going to be cyborgs some day.